The concept in organizing our label is open to the artists itself we are working with. At the end of the procedure of releasing a record the result is one of an interaction between artist and label. We dislike labels positioning itself as a main actor; see "Why doees your label logo fades out".

Why does your label logo fades out?

It symbolizes our hope that capitalistic system could be negotiate. In consequence this means to us record companies or music instustrie becomes superfluously and culture is a result of artists without institutional influences.

Confusion. I found unterm durchschnitt in ilmenau, hamburg, göttingen and cologne. Where is your label located

Never seeking for special identification with a local region made it easy to move locations but to keep our name.

Andreas started unterm durchschnitt in early 1999 living near Göttingen in Barbis B.L.. He released records Burning Leaves,..?, Squeeze#6, Jet Black 7inch there. Later he moved to Ilmenau for a couple of years and released Black Box Pilot, Anti Rockstar Compilation, Peters 7inch, Katzenstreik´s "Solves your problems" there. In 2005 he relocate again and moved to Cologne where Antje already lived. That´s the reason why old records include different adresses to our actual adress.

unterm durchschnitt from Hamburg is a different story (R.I.P.) That was a very cool and influencial recordstore that Andreas adored at young age. The name was inspiration on search for a good labelname some years later.

I don´t understand german. How do i understand the whole website?

If you do not understand everything we are very sorry. We tried our best to translate it from year to year in English. Might be that Myspace helps out at his point. You find your profile here: myspace.com/durchschnittlich. Hopefully this page gives you exactly the piece of information that you are searching for.

Otherwise we hope that you get some informations such as about our release catalogue, tourdates and tourhistory of each band, lyrics on unterm.org / unterm-durchschnitt.de.

Our webadmin kept a clear structure so that exercising patience could bring you to your aim. We started the website in 1999 and didn`t thought that it could take a size where people from other countries find interest in our work. Hopefully the relaunch in 2009 makes it better now.

I am a Booker. Can i book one of your bands through you?

We are no booking agency. But send us a mail and we forward your request to our artists or the responsible person. Someone will return on your request. If not please get back to us.

To make it easier we give a lot informations at contact, if you look below.

I need some backround informations on I Can´t Relax In Deutschland. Can you help?

I Can´t Relax In Deutschland is an initiative against (pop) nationalism. Amazingly, in these days being-German functions as a lifestyle perfectly: Music, art as well as fashion and photography labeled as ?German? qualify as marketing strategies and bring together pop culture and nationalism in a modern Germany. This does not only concern popular culture but reflects broad tendencies within the German society of finding a way to normality, when dealing with the own country and its history. Many artist openly promote revisionist and chauvinist views in their works. The purposes of doing so are manifold: from a lovely commitment to preserve German cultural traditions, or the locational factor - to stay competive - by demanding a quota regulation for a sufficent number of German productions on the radio, to a rediscovered pride of the nation. The campaign ?I can´t relax in Deutschland? wants to contradict these tendencies and tries to deliver a profound criticism of the German nation, and the current patriotic mainstream, which by now has penetrated nearly every aspect of pop culture and thus corrupt its universal approach. The book features four articles by authors such as Martin Büsser (Intro, konkret) and Roger Behrens (Testcard) who tackle the question of how cultural traditionalism works as ideological fundament of collectivism under capitalistic conditions, and why there is a strong urge to love the nation and express it via the mechanisms of pop culture. Furthermore, the book includes a CD-compilation with 20 songs by various artist (Die Goldenen Zitronen, Mouse On Mars, Die Sterne, Kante, Robocop Kraus, Stella, a.m.), who unites a disturbed relationship with Germany, and who resist to let pop music being exploitet for nationalistic purposes. ?I can´t relax in Deutschland? wants necessarily to adopt a critical point of view, outside of the general discussion, and rather refer to the universal character of pop. The campaign and all its participiants refuse to relate positively to Germany at all, nor to accept the instrumentalization of pop culture for nationalistic purposes in any way. for more informations please visit icantrelaxin.de online or e-mail to info@icantrelaxin.de

FAQ - Wholesaler

Broken Silence does a good work for small distros, wholesalers and mailorders and the team is very nice. Jan from our distro´s Sales Dpt. has own experiences in the Hamburg punkscene, so don´t be shy or afraid.

Important to you is, to deal with Broken Silence you´ll need a tax number. If you ain´t got one get in touch with us or in cases of doubt drop us some lines and we help you.

Must i pay taxes? How high are taxes in Germany?

Trade inner European Union is tax-free. Not free from taxes is trade inner Germany and with the rest of world.

The taxrate is 19% or - for books, zines or Mp3s 7% - on the net price. For more detailed and specific infos it might be better to go to the official site of the Bundesamt Für Steuern (in english).

Do you trade?

No, we do not trade.

We as well as our distributors do not trade. Bad experiences is not the only reason for it. We also critizise theoretical missinterpreted ideologies that we felt in punk and d.i.y. scene. D.I.Y.´s often think it is an anti-capitalist practise when trading record to record instead of record/money. This one of the biggest failures of radical left ideas. If you want to know more it might be intersting to read our statement at "Polaroids Plus" in our menu.

Would you distro my release?

Mail us on grrr@unterm-durchschnitt.de if you want us something to consider for our distro or send us promotional copies. Do not send us digital music via e-mail. Please don't mail us multiple copies of something without clearing it with us first.

Like any distro, we mark up the records we carry and also factor in postage. Don't charge us EUR 7,00 for a record then ask us to mailorder it for EUR 8,00. If you want the prices low, keep our costs low!

I got your mail, but the packaging looks used.

If you think someone opend our mail please write us futher details and please lodge a complaint at your local post office quickly!

If it looked used twice or third time, we always use recycled or reused mailer if we can. We do not care about the beauty of packagings outside, as long records or whatever is safe inside. We think, this is a small but useful contribution for a better environment!

FAQ - Your Band

But until today we wait for the demotape through postal mail that replaces a live concert. Best way to get a place in our roster is to find the way to one of your shows.

If you guess your tape changes our point of view do not hesitate and send it to our post box. Send us a Cassette or a Compact Disc including your lyrics! Do not send us your songs via e-mail, do not send us your biographies, photos, stylish packaging or a presscollection. We don´t care about these things!

Recycled or reused mailer prefered.

What style of music are you looking for?

We are not looking for a particular kind or style of music.

But: if you interpret your style as Oi! please do not send your music to us. Oi! is as stupid as 21st westcoast-poppunk. We simply dislike it because it bores us.

Otherwise it should be shure but to make shure one more time: If any of you in any way hate homosexuals, people of different color, or women, please do this one favor for us -- leave us the fuck alone!

How long do you need to answer on demos?

We answer only on demos if we like it.

Do not wait and do not spam us with questions. We are sorry for this line but running that label is a fulltime job and we do not feel as zines reviewing or commentate any kind of music.

My home is Myspace (or an other "social" network). Would you dispite hear my music

As said, we prefer you send us a Cassette or CD-R. Please send us your stuff on the traditional way via postal service.

Adding us at Myspace (or any other kind of "social" network we run a profile) is okay and sometimes we look on people´s profile added us. But there is no guarantee. Bands sending us messages via Myspace (or any other kind of "social" network) will be ignored. Rupert Murdocks company does not give us the infrastructure we like for communication! Also guestbookentries somewhere adressed to unterm durchschnitt will be ignored.

I would like to play with my band in Germany/NRW/Cologne. Can you help us?

We are unfortunately not that much help in this area because we do not organize concerts or book bands for shows.

FAQ - Media

Can i get some of your records to review for my media? Whom do i contact?

We are very happy if people publish label-related stuff in medias.

We also work together with friends that run a promoter business on a solid ground. You find more infos to our network when checking contact-infos.

People from elsewhere should send a mail to our main office and include a playlist of your most recent show, information about whether your station reports too CMJ, FMQB etc. and what current unterm durchschnitt-artists you are particularly interested in. Your email will be forwarded to the responsible department for consideration.

Be shure that we press small issues and can not disperse 500 of 500 7inches for promotional use. In general we send out promos only to people we know personal or giving us a supportive and relevant impression. Best way to get a copy of our music is to ask for tracks from our download-area in highquality or simply buy our records if you like our music and would support us a bit more.

FAQ - Customer Service

Broken Silence as our main distributor carrying all currently available records to stores in europe. You find a big list on www.brokensilence.biz in the "Läden"-category. They also deal with other wholesaler and mailorders in a network for Europe. In USA you can get our records through Interpunk, they also run a good and easy to use mailorder on their website www.interpunk.com. If you miss one of our records, please inform us and we care. If you got problems finding our records you can order it through www.grrr-mailorder.de, our very own small and unprofessional mailorder, or drop us some lines by e-mail and we solve all your problems.

Why is your music so expensive at stores?

To ship our records through the country and bring it to stores in your town more than a handful of people is working. That costs money and makes record expensive.

If you buy a record for 15 ? at stores we earn less than the half! But that´s okay because shopowners and distributors have to pay their staff. Do not forget the postman that needs also to get paid.

Please continue supporting small shops and mailorders!

I am a fan. Can i order your stuff directly?

We run a small mailorder - Grrr.

If you do not expect a tempo as you expect at E-Bay, Amazon or others please visit www.grrr-mailorder.de and place your order. We are happy in getting in touch with you.

We also offer a small program of bands we feel familiar with or being friends of our bands.

I got your mail, but the packaging looks used.

If you think someone opend our mail please write us futher details and please lodge a complaint at your local post office quickly!

If it looked used twice or third time, we always use recycled or reused mailer if we can. We do not care about the beauty of packagings outside, as long records or whatever is safe inside. We think, this is a small but useful contribution for a better environment!

FAQ - Jobs & Internships

Those who are interested in an internship should contact us. But please look closly that unterm durchschnitt is a record company: we do not run a live club or a studio.

We can work out an individual task bases on your special interests. You would be responsable for it during your internship.

Special Internship

If you got special interests or ideas do not be shy and contact us via mail or phone. some ideas or wishes that we can make good use of:

Translators:

we would be very happy to get contact with people that help us with very good (!) language knowledge in english/german, french/german, russian/german, chinese/german, japaneese/german or spanish/german. larger directions between cologne and your hometown are no problem but it is important that it is your mother language or you live in that country you speak the language from longer than some months. just contact us if you are interested.

Videofilmer:

creative people that got equipment and enthusiasm in recording and producing videoclips with inteligent stories just give us a call. larger directions between cologne and your hometown are no problem. just contact us if you are interested.